Lace UFOs

Lace UFOs. The albatross around my neck which will not go away. I have a few of them so  I plan to take the mouldy oldies out and try to finish them during this section of the Season of Lace. Which one’s you ask?  I’m almost afraid to name them. I have three of them. Project number one makes me break out into a cold sweat every time I think of bringing it out to play. It’s the kind of lace that reminds me that I have a left, right, up, down family inherited mild dyslexia that rears its ugly head when I look at the charts. It’s the “Wedding Ring Shawl” by Sharon Miller. It’s a beautiful pattern that was way beyond my skill-set when I started it. If I knew then what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently. I used a vintage Shetland Cobweb weight yarn single that I had been holding onto for literally years in the hopes of someday being able to knit a shawl. That yarn has caused me more greif than I can express as it shreds when you pick back, gets caught in the join between needle and cable and tries to knot every chance it gets. Torture. Of course, I had never before knit lace that had pattern on both sides so there are some errors. But I’d rather be covered in honey and tied to a fire ant hill before I would consider picking back at this point.  The errors stay and somehow I hope to take this opportunity to pick up my knitting and move on. Project two.  Spider Queen by Hazel Carter.  If I had only decided to go with the original border I would have finished this ages ago. However, stupid just had to try for a different one so it has sat unfinished and I’ve lost the chart to the original border to boot! No going back but I hope to go forward. Lastly, project three.  the Shetland Tea Shawl from a Gathering of Lace. Knit with badly spun yarn that I made from beautiful fiber by Lisa Souza, It was one of my first spinning efforts after not spinning for many years. I reached the Madeira Lace section and it just would not come out right.  Later I discovered that there were corrections to the chart in the original hardcover book (never beta test a lace book).Though I have the corrected charts, I have not finished having been skunked so to speak.  There you have it. Even if I don’t finish them all during the Season, I will be happy if I just get back to knitting them.  Other than those projects, I’d like to try a nice doily and maybe a nice handspun project